Turkey is building a $US 700 million pipeline to transfer water from a dam on its Mediterranean coast to Cyprus, Bloomberg News reported. The pipeline will run 107 kilometers (66 miles) under the sea to bring 75 million cubic meters (19.8 billion gallons) of water to the northern part of the island, which is controlled by Turkey.

Developing countries should improve their water management by calculating a “water balance,” according to the manager of the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program, Xinhua reported. A water balance takes into account the water demand from agricultural, industrial and municipal uses, as well as the total supply of clean water.

Health
Hunger and malnutrition will likely be the largest health impacts of a changing global climate, said a top health expert at a World Health Organization (WHO) briefing. Unpredictable weather patterns could make it difficult for farmers to produce enough food, AlertNet reported.

Rapid urbanization and growing slums in Bangladesh are forcing thousands into a healthcare “black hole,” the Guardian reported. Problems like staff shortages at hospitals are compounded by a lack of basic services, such as access to clean water.

Biofuels and Drought
The European Commission has proposed limiting the amount of crop-based biofuels used in transport fuels to 5 percent, responding to accusations that EU biofuel policy contributes to high global food pricesReuters reported. A drought in the United States, which pushed grain prices to record highs, has intensified debate about biofuels.

Codi Yeager-Kozacek is a news correspondent for Circle of Blue based out of Hawaii. She co-writes The Stream, Circle of Blue’s daily digest of international water news trends. Her interests include food security, ecology and the Great Lakes.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 19th, 2012 at 8:00 am and is filed under The Stream.
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